Christ; and certainly on earth this was his controlling motive. He
was obedient even unto death. To obey to the very least particular
the Father's will was the principle of his being. To him the
Father's will was not hard, stern law, as we with our rebellious
instincts so often regard it; it was the Father's wish. When love
exists between two persons, the will of one it is the other's joy
to do, if possible. Love impels to its accomplishment. Love
rejoices in being of service, in giving the loved one pleasure, in
carrying out the other's desire. So the will of God was, to Christ,
his Father's wish. Obedience was the mainspring of his soul's life,
and his errand in the world derived its sanctity and its glory--in
spite of man's antagonism and in spite of apparent
fruitlessness--from the fact that it was the will of God. In this
Christ discloses the very highest spiritual life which it is
possible to conceive. How marvelous was this! He who has won the
greatest influence over the race, he before whom the head bows in
adoration, he who has changed already the course of history, and
will change it until every knee has bowed to him, was one whose
supreme wish was to be an obedient Son. Instead of conquering by
selfishness he conquered by self-abnegation. Instead of doing his
own work, he gave himself up to doing his Father's. Here is at once
a miracle of history and a model of life of which man would never
have dreamed.

3. As a consequence of all this we can perceive in the language of
the text Christ's joy in the discovery of a special opportunity of
carrying out the highest purpose of the Father's will. It would
seem that his meeting with the Samaritan woman awakened almost a
state of excitement in his mind. It lifted him above the reach of
physical desires. This I suppose was because he recognized in that
meeting an opportunity of doing what he knew was dearest to his
Father's heart. His errand was to ultimately save the world, and
now he was engaged in saving at least one soul. No doubt his
devotion to the Father's will sustained him, even in the darkest
hour. When the will of God consigned him to the hatred of men, to
the rejection of the people, to the bitter sorrow of the cross, he
could bow his head in humble compliance and say, "Thy will, not
mine, be done." But he knew wel